Electric Guitars and Rockin’ Rebels : A Surprising Journey on the Legendary Queen Mary 2

SOMEWHERE IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN: It’s formal night on the luxurious Cunard Queen Mary 2 and the British pub on board is packed with men in tuxedos and dark suits and women in elegant ball gowns.
Instead of nodding quietly to a tinkling piano, however, this crowd of mostly middle-aged cruise enthusiasts are listening to a British musician blaze a loud, searing solo on his electric guitar as he plays Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.”
Their hands rise above their heads in unison, clapping fiercely as they join guitarist Paul Garthwaite in belting out the song’s famous lines, “We don’t need no education; we don’t need no thought control.”
Folks inside the pub probably have more degrees than your average Harvard class reunion, but they’re fully into the lyrics about boring teachers and children being swept up into an educational meat grinder.
I’m into it just as much as the others in the room, raising my glass of London Pride ale and belting out the lyrics as Garthwaite issues a soulful guitar solo. I look around, then lean over to my wife. “This isn’t quite what I expected.”
Like many folks, I was drawn to an ocean voyage on the Queen Mary 2 because of the nearly two-century history of these magnificent ships and the idea of a glamorous evening on the high seas in my polished shoes and crisp white shirt and just-able-to-squeeze-into tuxedo. I figured there would be jazz orchestras and classical music and perhaps a bit of song-and-dance or cabaret in the lounge. There was plenty of all that, and it was magnificent.
But I was surprised on one of our first days at sea to look down at the immense list of things to do (the amount of choice one is given is almost absurd) and see a note about a bloke who would be playing in the British pub on board and talking about the history of the electric guitar. My wife and I got to the pub just before Garthwaite began his first day of performing and ordered a couple beers.

Within minutes Garthwaite was in front of the crowd, bubbling on in an impossibly infectious and excited tone about the mellifluous guitar work of Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits and his “cinematic” way of writing songs. They’re one of my favourite bands and I quickly fell in love with Garthwaite’s helter-skelter delivery, a rushed outpouring of anecdotes and historical notes interspersed with remarkable guitar licks played at what seemed like very un-Cunard-like volumes. He rambled on more than one occasion, but his passion was so obvious that it became part of his charm.
He repeated the trick all week but with different artists; Eric Clapton, Santana, and even Jimi Hendrix. I think we saw him perform four times and we saw him sing and play with his wife a couple nights as part of their duo, called Amethyst.
When I express surprise at the audience reaction to his playing, the British-born Garthwaite laughs.
“The 60’s and 70’s were a golden era for music,” he explains. “If he were alive today Jimi Hendrix would be 76. It makes sense that older travellers want to hear this kind of music.”
“It’s total freelance,” Garthwaite said of his gigs. “We were playing after midnight on a recent cruise (I spoke with him in early November and he’d been on board the ship pretty much since late June) and a German family asked me to play ‘Highway to Hell’ by AC/DC. So, I did.
“The cruise line doesn’t dictate what we play. They just ask if we’re free to do shows. There are 32 musicians on board, so if you want to hear jazz or big band or rock ‘n roll or a 16-piece orchestra you can get it.”

Indeed, there was a snapping good band playing dance tunes in the late-night disco one night. I also loved hearing Glenn Miller tunes on big band night and enjoyed a soft jazz trio in the Chart Room lounge, where they feature tasty cocktails based on astrological signs.
“You don’t expect musicians this good on a ship,” said Ben Loudon of Canberra, Australia following Garthwaite’s Pink Floyd show. “I’m a musician myself; I play double bass. And I’m absolutely gobsmacked by the musicians they have on board and their ability and their passion.”
His wife, Josie, said she loved many other features on the ship, including a talk on Japanese influences on French Impression.
“There are so many things to do; it’s just remarkable.”
A Cunard official on board the ship told me they used to have piano players in all the lounges. But they changed it up a few years ago; loosening the musical strings if you will and embracing something new.
The key is a wide-range of activities and entertainment, said QM2 Entertainment Director Catherine Kennedy. “Having as much variety as possible guarantees that everyone will like something,” she said.
A glimpse down the daily schedule revealed everything from trivia nights to bridge to cha-cha dancing to a harp player at lunch. There were talks about North Korea, the art of the Rockefeller Center in New York City and Jack the Ripper.

There was ballroom dancing, line dancing and Latin Dancing, as well as a late-night disco with a soulful band. There was duplicate bridge, social shuffleboard, watercolour art classes and free gaming classes in the casino. And there were performances of “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Importance of Being Earnest” by members of Britain’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
“People don’t know what to expect on a trans-Atlantic cruise,” Kennedy said. “They’re afraid there are no days in port and that they can only sit around and look at the sea. They don’t realize time goes by in a flash because there’s so much to do.”
Ken Waters of Arizona, who was on our cruise, said he enjoyed Garthwaite’s music, loved the “Rhythm of the Night” musical performance and was hugely impressed by a couple of talks from speaker Jeremy Hunter.
Our voyage was partly billed as an Ancestry.com cruise. Cunard brought along Ancestry.com experts who talked about how folks can create family trees and find distant relatives. They even did surprise reveals for people on board, including Captain Christopher Wells, who found out more about his Irish relatives than he had ever known.

There was a bit of a mess on the first Ancestry.com presentation day as the experts were booked in a room that seated perhaps 100 people. Two or perhaps three times that number showed up, and those that couldn’t get in were not happy.
The ancestry talk was moved to a larger room later in the cruise, which was a good move. I attended that session and enjoyed hearing about brothers and sisters can have slightly different DNA and how much has changed over the past few years with Ancestry.com.
Not long ago, folks who took the Ancestry.com DNA test could only find out if their relatives were from Asia, Africa or Europe. Now, they can pinpoint several hundred areas, including regions of various countries. My wife’s test, for example, shows she has relatives from Munster, Ireland. My test suggests many of my relatives from France and the UK settled along the St. Lawrence River, which is almost certainly correct as we have found grandparents and other relations from Ontario, Quebec and upstate New York.
Ancestry.com officials also issued sage advice to folks on the ship, advising them to take their time and keep notes so they don’t duplicate their efforts.
“This is the first time we’ve done aAncestry.com talks on a cruise ship and we learned a lot,” said Eva Goodwin of Ancestry.com.

Goodwin said folks who use their service to delve into their family’s past are sometimes taken aback.
“Sometimes what they find is completely out of whack with what they expected. Sometimes they find out the person they called their father isn’t their biological father.”
One of my friends on the voyage said she looked into her family’s history and found out her mother had been lying about her middle name for years.
“I was like ‘Mom! You lied!’”
They were only short announcements, usually three or four minutes, but one of the highlights of the trip for me were the daily noon public address chats from Captain Wells. He has a wonderful, dry sense of humour and a true love of the sea that shone through in his talks about fishing grounds, shipping routes or the weather. One day during rather sough seas of around nine metres and high winds, Wells pronounced the weather as “rather lumpy.”
During a chat with journalists on the voyage (Cunard calls it a “voyage” or a “crossing” instead of a cruise because you don’t stop along the way), Wells talked about the ongoing fascination with The Titanic. At one point on our voyage we were only 140 or so km’s from where the great ship went down.
“Our voyage recreates some of particularly the ambience and the excitement of the voyage itself, and our decoration around the ship and our tribute to days gone by, art deco designs, are a tribute to some of the Atlantic liners that have crossed in the past. But only a small part. Don’t forget, in the old days only a small proportion of people on board those ships experienced the glamour. Most of the people were down below in very small cabins, sharing with multiple people to make an immigration or emigration journey.

“It wasn’t glamorous for those people, but now it’s glamorous for everybody.”
We did have some “interesting” weather, but the ship took the heavy seas in stride, without any plates sliding off dinner tables.
Wells told journalists that, back in the day, tables on board ocean liners had edges on them called fiddles, which kept plates from sliding onto floors.
“We don’t have them anymore. It’s very disappointing. They just don’t make them any longer. When we rush to Ikea to get the furniture we need it’s just not available,” he said with a smile.
Wells said he hasn’t had any theatrical training, despite his great timing and way with words.
“I love the ocean. And I love being at sea. And I love this ship. I love this ship because she was designed to cross the ocean. All those things together. If I wax lyrical about an ocean crossing and the magnificence of the sea, it’s just because I’ve been at sea for 45 years.”

One Queen Mary 2 worker summed up the crossing experience like this.
“It’s about beauty and elegance,” he told me over dinner one night. “Anyone can hop on a plane for America and arrived jet-lagged. With Cunard getting there is half the fun. You can travel in style and elegance. And we’ve been doing this for 178 years.”

HIGHLIGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS

The Cunard line history is all around you on the Queen Mary 2, with marvellous old photos of everyone from Clark Gable to Queen Elizabeth and Dr. James Naismith, the Canadian who invented basketball. The photos and murals and old Cunard advertisements are marvellous.

We took a craft cocktail class that was fantastic. Cunard has designed a series of cocktails in honour of their various commodores and they use a huge variety of interesting, quirky ingredients to fire up drinks with everything from Liverpool Gin and Passion Fruit Puree to limoncello and melted marshmallow. One drink came under a dome filled with dry ice and a pipe. The class is available once per voyage for $46 USD; a great deal considering you get to sample the cocktails.

One great feature on the Queen Mary 2 are the kennels, where passengers can pay to have their furry friends looked after and even go for visits. They had British-style phone booths for the UK dogs and red fire hydrants for the North American animals. Cute.

The wine-tasting classes are educational and a very good deal; with generous servings and lots of good information on wines from around the world.

The food was fine in the main dining room, The Brittania Room. It’s not super adventurous given the average age of the passengers (probably late 60’s or early 70’s) but it was tasty and well-presented, with very reasonable prices for wine or drinks. ($10 or $11 USD for a nice cocktail). I enjoyed the two pop-up places I tried (casual places where they do different specialties on different nights). We had nice bbq one evening, with small but tasty ribs and good crab cakes. Another night it was an Asian theme, which was quite good. It’s worth splurging for a steak in The Verandah, where I had a terrific New York cut along with thick onion rings. It’s an extra $25 per person at lunch and $39 per person at dinner to access the Verandah, where you get to choose your own steak knife style. The Princess Grill has exceptional service and serves lovely food (I had thin but very spicy and good creole gumbo soup and terrific sticky toffee pudding). The Princess Grill and the Queens Grill are only for customers who book Grill cabins.

The 12th level had a small but nice indoor pool and two hot tubs surrounded by deck chairs under glass, so you can enjoy the feeling of the outdoors even when it’s cool outside. It’s a retractable roof so you can be outdoors in good weather. Nearby was a ping pong table and an indoor golf simulator. There’s a larger outdoor pool at the back of the ship. In all, the ship has five pools, including one for kids.

The gym is terrific: very expansive and outfitted with sleek, expensive machines of all types. I also took advantage of the Canyon Ranch Spa and had a terrific facial with a relaxing session, facial cleansing, exfoliation, oxygen infusion, masque, massage and moisturizer. If you do go the spa, be sure to take advantage of the remarkable pool and water treatments at no extra charge. There’s a massive spa in the middle of the room with recliners in the water, and two tubs off to the side. They also have a dry sauna, and a steam room with beautiful mosaic tiles that I really enjoyed.

There is, of course, a casino and also several high-end shops, plus a duty-free liquor place where they’ll store your purchase until the final night of the cruise. Sorry, I mean crossing.

We had a Britannia balcony room that was close to 300 square feet with a small sofa, a mini-fridge and two nice-sized balcony with two chairs. There’s a ton of space for storing your stuff, even when you’re toting a tux, a suit and a couple of sports jackets.

CROSSING TIPS

HOW TO CROSS: If you travel from Southampton to New York, you pick up time along the way and probably will get through any rough weather patches faster (or so the crew told me). There’s also the bonus of sailing into New York City early in the morning, an unforgettable experience.

WHEN TO CROSS: The Atlantic is seldom calm and warm like the South Pacific. But it’s reasonably comfortable in summer most of the time, so that’s a nice option if you want to use the outdoor pools and go for long walks on the promenade. Our trip was early November and seas were quite rough two or three days, making it difficult to enjoy the fresh air. But there was plenty to do inside, and we weren’t expecting to work on our tans at that time of year to begin with.

OKAY, DON’T CROSS AT ALL: The Queen Mary 2 goes “on vacation” every year, taking a break from her Atlantic crossings to head out to Asia and other distant lands. She’ll go on a Southampton-Dubai visit from Jan. 10 to Jan. 29, for example. There’s a Dubai-Singapore route after that. If you want to avoid a big air fare, try the Eastern U.S. and Canada trip in September of 2019, with prices starting at just $1,169 USD (plus $196.39 in taxes and fees).

PRICES: Crossing prices start at $999 USD per person, a great deal for seven nights of accommodation, entertainment and all the food you can possibly eat on a ship of this quality. I found that for a New York-Southampton crossing in January with a balcony stateroom. I also saw a Southampton-New York crossing in August of next year for $1,229 USD (plus taxes and fees of $103.95) for an inside room.

OTHER TIPS

Try the Carinthia lounge on the QM2 for a quiet space at lunch. There’s no extra charge but it’s much more sophisticated space than the casual, bustling Kings’ Court. They often have live music, and there are comfy chairs and sofas by the score.

The Commodore Club is a wonderful spot near the front of the ship. The on-board library is a vast facility with beautiful, wooden bookshelves and lots of nooks and crannies for reading or snoozing. I never made it to the Champagne Bar.

Many cruises have themes or special guests. Past trips have included James Taylor and Crosby, Stills and Nash. They also do fashion cruises and other special crossings, so you can almost certainly find one you like.

FURTHER INFORMATION ON THE QUEEN MARY 2 AND OTHER CUNARD SHIPS: www.cunard.com